Nucleic acid analyte identification is a critical procedure in a variety of biomedical applications, such as in research and clinical diagnostic environments. Identification of an analyte is primarily done by sequencing or by amplification-based detection. For example, in the latter scheme, the polymerase chain reaction is often used to increase the quantity of the nucleic acid analyte present.
Then, the nucleic acid analytes are discriminated using one of several additional techniques including fluorescence intensity measurement (e.g., fluorescent probes or intercalating dyes), length discrimination (e.g., using gel electrophoresis or melt curve analysis), or chromatography (e.g., haptin-based nucleic acid capture). Thus, current amplification based detection technology indirectly detects analytes and requires a secondary technique (such as gel electrophoresis or mass spectroscopy) for analyte detection. Amplification-based techniques that directly detect analytes would improve efficiency, time and cost.